DA’s CONSTITUTION 20th AMENDMENT BILL: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT UNPACKS CONCERNS

DA’s CONSTITUTION 20th AMENDMENT BILL: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT UNPACKS CONCERNS

• 12 February 2025
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Justice & Constitutional Development has expressed reservations about a Constitution 20^th Amendment Bill tabled by the Democratic Alliance in November 2024.

As SA Legal Academy reported at the time, the Bill seeks to establish a ‘cyber commissioner’ as a new Chapter 9 institution.

According a departmental presentation to the National Assembly’s Justice & Constitutional Development Committee:

• its proponents appear to have overlooked:
  • the 2021 commencement of most sections of the 2020 Cybercrimes Act, and
  • the establishment of a cybersecurity hub as South Africa’s ‘security incident response team’ established under the mandate of the Department of Communications & Digital Technologies
• the State Security Agency is in the process of developing cybersecurity legislation, in the context of which:
  • a ‘cyber response committee’ is conducting an audit of ‘all existing statutory structures and institutions exercising oversight over and performing powers, duties and functions in respect of cyber security’, and
  • the cyber response committee includes representatives of the South African Police Service, the Department of International Relations & Co-operation and the Department of Communications & Digital Technologies.

Against that backdrop, the presentation questions the need for a new Constitution Chapter 9 institution a cyber commission, especially noting:

• its human resource cost implications, and that
• ‘if there is a lack of resources and expertise hampering current efforts, it is unclear how this problem will be resolved with the creation of a new entity’
• ‘consolidating functions within a single entity will still require the performance of functions by various sectors, both private and public’ and that
• ‘if co-ordination is indeed a problem, … these can be addressed through better management of … (existing) structures’.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Bill
• presentation document
• Cybercrimes Act

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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